Snitches get Stitches

“You’re so pretty.”

Fiona rolled on her side and grinned at Tonks. “Quit that,” she said. “You’re such an ass-kisser.”

“Oh, love, I’ll kiss your arse all day if you’d let me,” Tonks said, her lips curling to the side in a playful smirk. When she reached out to twirl a lock of Fiona’s dark hair around her pale finger, Fiona couldn’t help the smile that curled her own lips.

“I wish you didn’t have to go back,” Fiona admitted quietly. It had been nice, having Tonks be around while everything else went to hell.

Harry was still missing. Lip was out all damn day every day, skipping school even, to look for him. Or maybe he was trying to make money, pay off Mandy Milkovich for the fucking baby he bought. Remus was losing his mind, searching everywhere for his kid, and Fiona just… fuck.

It was just nice to have Tonks around, that was all.

Tonks still twirled Fiona’s hair around her finger. They were both in Fiona’s bed, just enjoying the few minutes of quiet before the hellians woke up and everything had to be done.

It was the last day before they’d all be home four days for the holiday and Fiona had to work and go to the store and clean the house and start prepping food. After school, someone had to help Debbie bake a pie before the girl lost her damn mind.

It would be a nightmare. Fiona had never made a real Thanksgiving meal, they never had the money or the time for it. But Remus had chipped in, Kev and V chipped in, and everyone was expecting Fiona to work miracles to make a meal.

Soaking in a few more minutes of peace with Tonks was something like a dream that Fiona felt shitty for wallowing in. Dreams weren’t practical, dreams didn’t pay the electric bill or keep the heat on. Though, magic did fix the heater apparently.

It was almost worth telling the kids about Liam, about Tonks, about Remus and Harry and Hermione.

Except Fiona couldn’t because the day after she found out about fucking magic, she’d sat in Liam’s room and whispered to him all the ways their lives could be so much fucking better with magic. And if Fiona could give in like that, beg a baby to fix shit with magic he couldn’t even use yet? Then every one of her siblings could too.

And it wasn’t fair to Liam.

When Liam was older and Fiona had to start explaining shit to him, she would tell all of them about it. But not until Liam was old enough to tell everyone to fuck off when they bugged him for shit.

Magic solutions to their problems wasn’t worth hurting Liam, nothing was.

Fiona sighed and rolled on her back so she could paw at the headboard of her bed, trying to find a can of anything to drink. Coffee would have been awesome, but if Fiona wanted coffee she would have to get her ass up and go make it.

“You’ve never asked me to stay, inamorata,” Tonks said quietly after Fiona took a swig of flat Pepsi. Tonks didn’t look away when she said it, she just looked right at Fiona while Fiona felt her stomach twist and she scrambled for an explanation.

“You have a job,” Fiona pointed out. “You can’t give that up for.. for whatever the fuck this is.”

Tonks scooted up so she could sit and lean against the headboard. It was almost enough to make Fiona feel self-conscious with just how perfect Tonks’ body was and how shameless she was naked. Fiona only didn’t get a complex over it because the night before Tonks spent an hour making Fiona laugh her ass off by making herself as unattractive as possible with her powers.

“What is this?” Tonks asked with a grin. “Am I your not-so-secret lover or…”

“You’re my friend,” Fiona said quickly. “Why ruin a good thing with labels?”

Everything went south when a label got attached. A label made Fiona think someone was going to stick around, be dependable. Tonks lived across a fucking ocean, Fiona couldn’t count on her to just pop by every time Fiona needed her. Plus labels added an expectation of loyalty to a relationship and Fiona was shit at loyalty.

If it was good conversation and great sex between them, why change any of it?

Fiona expected that Tonks would agree with her, except there was a little crease between her eyebrows that Fiona only saw for a second before she smoothed it away and smiled.

“As long as you’re not shagging Remus,” Tonks said with a light laugh. She pecked Fiona on the lips before rolling out of the bed. When she stood up to stretch, Fiona had a great view of her bare ass that she was quick to smack.

“‘Shag’ in the shower before the kids wake up?” Fiona asked hopefully.

“Absolutely.”

Ian and Mickey beat them downstairs and Fiona did a decent impression of a bon fire with as red as her face was. Ian wiggled his eyebrows and Fiona slugged him in the shoulder playfully.

Then she noticed Mandy Milkovich sitting at the kitchen table with her head down and a bowl of Debbie’s beloved Marshmallow Mateys in front of her.

“Uh… coffee, anyone?” Fiona asked, automatically turning to start a pot. Tonks wasn’t as uncomfortable as the baby-seller as Fiona was, she just plopped down right next to Mandy at the table while the boys kept working on breakfast for everyone.

“How are you?” Tonks asked Mandy politely, more politely than Fiona would be.

Lip did a scummy thing by offering a girl who only ever knew poverty cash to continue a pregnancy, but Mandy did a scummy thing by accepting. It would be different if Mandy was some sort of ghetto-surrogate, but instead she was a teenager who put a price on Harry’s kid.

“Fine,” Mandy said quietly. She glanced at Fiona and nodded shortly. “Thanks for letting me crash here, I can like do laundry or something if you want.”

Fiona was really becoming a shit parent to her siblings because she didn’t even know that Mandy had crashed there. When she looked at Ian, he made himself real fucking busy with the eggs on the stove.

“It’s no problem,” Fiona told Mandy, focusing on the coffee pot. “Don’t worry about the laundry, the washer’s fucked up.”

It had been stupid of Fiona to throw the washer outside when she kicked Steve out. Lip dragged it back in, but it didn’t drain right anymore. It was just another thing Fiona added to her ‘going to need replaced’ list.

“Why aren’t you at home?” Tonks asked Mandy. “Everything alright?”

“Hermione’s a bitch,” Mickey muttered. Fiona turned to look at him, but he kept himself busy as he handed spices to Ian for the eggs.

“Hermione’s not a bitch,” Mandy disagreed from the table. “We’re just like… arguing a lot. She’s stressed out.”

“Stressed and psychotic, a dangerous combination,” Mickey said.

“Only if your name is Lip,” Ian quipped with a laugh.

“I’m sure you’re stressed too though,” Tonks told Mandy kindly. “Have you been to a doctor yet?”

“No,” Mandy said shortly, looking back at the cereal she was swirling around. “I- I’m waiting for Harry to get back.”

Fiona winced. The longer Harry was gone, the less sure she was that he was coming back. It was getting cold as fuck out, the streets of Chicago weren’t a great place for a teenage boy like Harry to be on. Especially not when he’d been gone since Saturday morning. Five days?

Even Tony had told her that he had started checking morgues and hospitals.

“Ah. I see.” Tonks accepted the cup of coffee Fiona gave her and then stood up and smiled tightly at Fiona. “Mind if I leave your mug next door? I should pop by, see Remus.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Fiona said. “Tell him that Kev’s off today, he’ll have Liam while I work, but he should be ready to help look.”

“Will do.” Tonks strode fearlessly around the table and put one hand on Fiona’s shoulder so she could lean in and kiss her slowly.

Fiona was sort of addicted to Tonks’ lips… they were just so soft, so perfectly kissable.

“I’ll be back for my first Thanksgiving tomorrow,” Tonks whispered with a smile. “Don’t miss me too much.”

Fiona was kind of tongue tied and didn’t say surging so Tonks paused in the doorway and winked over her shoulder.

“I lied, please miss me so terribly much.”

Thank fuck that Tonks tripped down the stairs so Fiona could pretend that her brother and his boyfriend were laughing at her instead of Fiona.

Kevin was already dressed when Fiona dropped Liam off. Apparently, even if Fiona hadn’t seen him in a couple of days, Lip had gotten ahold of Kevin about driving some golf cart he stole around the beach.

“Lip thinks that Harry’s what? Just off catching a tan?” Fiona asked blankly as she passed Liam and his diaper bag over.

“Fi… I think he’s lost it,” Kevin said solemnly. “I guess he stole some fucking scanner—”

“Scanning sonar,” Ethel interrupted quietly, also dressed for a day out. With the jeans, hoodie, and beanie she wore, Fiona nearly didn’t recognize her when she had opened the door.

“Yeah, that,” Kevin nodded. “We’re not looking on the beach, Fi. Lip wants to check the water.”

Fiona’s hand shook while she tucked her scarf around herself tightly. That was fucked up, but… wasn’t that exactly what Fiona had been thinking earlier?

“Fuck,” she breathed.

Kevin nodded, “Yeah, fuck.”

Liam blinked his big brown eyes at Fiona.

“Uck.”

Fiona was relieved that the shift the unemployment office gave her was at a food truck downtown. It was busy as fuck and kept her from thinking too much about her little brother scanning the water for their neighbor’s body.

It wasn’t without drawbacks though.

“Hi.” Steve - or Jimmy, or whatever the fuck his name was - stepped up to the window and smiled like it was some big coincidence that he was there.

Fiona was poor, not stupid.

“I’m working,” Fiona said shortly, smiling past him at the next customer. “Can I help—”

“I’m a paying customer,” Steve said loudly. Films rolled her eyes when he ordered a Chicago dog and bottle of water.

“And I’d take a date tonight, if you’re not busy,” Steve added after Fiona told him his total.

“I am,” Fiona said. She made the change and practically threw it at him before following it with a bottle of water.

“Fiona, please?” Steve begged at her back while Fiona waited for Carl to make his food. “I’m sorry, okay? I can explain.”

“You can explain why you called me a whore?” Fiona demanded, spinning back around and pinning Steve with a glare. “Or do you mean why some bitch named Candace texted you - or Jimmy - and said how much she missed you?”

“Both, okay?” Steve said. He looked miserable and Fiona felt guilty, but not guilty enough to give up the whatever she had with Tonks for.

“No.” Fiona took the hot dog from Carl and handed it to Steve through the window. “Fuck off. I’m done.”

“You cheated on me! How are you the victim in this?!” Steve demanded. “I’ve seen that chick at your house, was the sex so bad it turned you gay?”

“Yep, that’s it,” Fiona said, adamantly refusing to look at the other customers who were willing to wait for their turn to order in favor of some free entertainment.

“At least I can’t blame myself for it, you fucked Remus too, right?” Steve laughed bitterly. “Were you ever faithful?”

Fiona had been. But she could also remember the exact night that she decided that she was willing to blow up her relationship with Steve.

Steve was planning to go on a car run to Detroit and Fiona wanted to go to the club. He teased her since they met at the club and then, just before he walked out the door, he said- “Love you.”

All casual, just like that.

“Love you.”

Fiona fucked Remus that night.

“Nope,” Fiona lied to Steve. “Never. I was getting railed by Kev and V while you were in Canada.”

“You’re so fucked up and you don’t even know it,” Steve said flatly. “Have a great fucking life, Fiona. I hope every person you screw knows you’re just working out your abandonment issues.”

Fiona got her post pay docked for throwing an open bottle of ketchup at Steve’s back when he walked away, but it was worth it.

With all the bullshit of the day, it wasn’t until Fiona got home and found Carl with a pie pan full of toads that she remembered Debbie.

“Son of a bitch.” Fiona groaned and dropped on the couch with her head tipped back and eyes closed.

All Debbie wanted to do was bake some fucking pies for Thanksgiving and Fiona forgot to stop at the store and get shit like flour and whatever else pies needed.

“Carl, where’s Debbie?” Fiona yelled in the kitchen. Maybe she could tell Debbie she wanted to go to the store together, let Debbie pick the ingredients she needed.

“Shiela’s house,” Carl yelled back. “They’re baking pies and I wasn’t invited.”

“Thank god.” Fiona ripped her hat off and tossed it blindly toward the mud room. “Carl, put these fucking toads outside and go see if V’s home. If she is, ask if we can do a load of laundry.”

Fiona needed to get her ass up. There was a turkey that needed stuffed, the dishes needed washed, the kitchen needed cleaned. Everyone would be over the next evening and as soon as Fiona had dinner in the oven, she should stop by Remus’ place and see if there was anything she could do to help with his search.

Ian and Mickey were probably over there already though, they had been every day that week. And Kevin had Liam with Lip. Debbie was at Sheila’s house… It was a rare kind of quiet that made Fiona wish she could just take a nap.

“Why can’t we use our washer?” Carl asked loudly. “It’s already running?”

“What? Fuck!” Fiona was immediately on her feet, rushing to the kitchen. The washer didn’t drain, last time she tried to run it after Lip brought it back inside, it spit the dirty water all over the floor.

Carl stood to the side with the pan that kept croaking while Fiona hurriedly unlocked the washer and flipped open the door.

“Oh…” It was on the spin cycle, the water had already drained. Fiona tilted the washer up to look for water and saw that the floor was perfectly dry. There was a piece of paper folded in half and stuck to the wall just above the control panel though.

Fiona snatched it and unconsciously grinned at the shirt and simple note.

Ask me what you want, I might surprise you.
PS: I’ve always wanted to try pumpkin pie.
XO, T.

“Come on, you little felon in the making.” Fiona ruffled Carl’s hair. “Let’s go to the store. After we bleach that fucking pan, I’ll teach you to make a pumpkin pie.”

Fiona didn’t get a lot of chances to spend time with just Carl. It was nice when it was just the two of them and Fiona actually got to talk with her little brother.

Sure, Carl was kind of fucking insane, but he was a Gallagher- it came with the name.

Carl was also hysterical and had Fiona laughing so hard over his impressions of celebrities that she thought she was going to piss herself.

“Stop, stop!” she cried, flinging some flour in Carl’s face when his Bush impersonation was too much. Carl looked the happiest Fiona had ever seen him and it made her regret not being able to spend more time one-on-one with him.

Even then, they were interrupted by the front door slamming shut only a moment before the back door was flung open.

Debbie ran directly from the back door to Fiona and threw her arms around Fiona and began just sobbing before Fiona could even realize that Lip was screaming for her in the living room.

“In here!” Fiona yelled back, more concerned with her sobbing sister. “Debs, what’s wrong? Honey, are you okay?”

Debbie cried even louder, masking the sound of Lip limping in the kitchen.

“Debbie…” Fiona looked at Lip and saw he had Liam on his hip and a closed-off expression on his face that was almost as worrying as Debbie’s sobs.

“What happened??” Fiona asked Lip while she rubbed Debbie’s back.

“There’s a hit on Harry’s description,” Lip said quietly, his voice strained and his arms tight on Liam. “St Vincent’s hospital in Indianapolis has an unidentified male in the ICU. He- he’s got a tattoo on his left arm, black hair, same height.”

Fiona’s heart dropped and the world felt shaky beneath her feet. Harry was a good kid, Fiona liked him well enough.

But Harry was one of them and if he could go missing and end up in an ICU… so could any of Fiona’s kids.

“Hospital is good though, right?” Fiona asked Lip, still trying to comfort Debbie. “Right?”

“They’re waiting on family to identify him to pull the plug,” Lip said. It broke Fiona’s heart in half when Lip’s voice broke right at the end and his eyes went glassy.

“Shit.” Fiona tried to open her arms for Lip to join the hug, but he shook his head and passed Liam to Carl before tearing out the backdoor.

“Is that what’s wrong, Debs?” Fiona asked her sister, focusing on the sibling who would accept comfort. Lip was so wrapped up in his guilt that Fiona didn’t doubt he was out doing something incredibly stupid to punish himself.

Nobody could self-destruct like a Gallagher.

“N-no,” Debbie cried, still clinging to Fiona. “Fi, it’s… it’s… Mom’s back. She was at Sheila’s with Frank.”

It wasn’t great that Carl was just as shocked as Fiona and dropped Liam on the floor at Debbie’s announcement. The only silver lining was that Carl and Debbie were both too stunned and upset to notice the unnatural way that Liam bounced harmlessly off the linoleum and landed on his diapered bottom.

Remus couldn’t breathe.

All the air in his lungs had frozen the instant that Tony Markovich had knocked on Remus’ door with his hat in his hands.

Remus had been coordinating a search with Kevin, Lip, Hermione, and the other teenagers that refused to stand to the side while Harry was missing. Remus had spent his day searching the nearest wizarding city, Hoosier Hills, while Kevin and Lip searched the water for bodies.

Hermione, Mandy, Ian, and Mickey had attended school, but Remus assumed he was relieved of that obligation. He hadn’t attended all week and all calls from the school went unanswered.

Finding Harry had been top priority and Remus put aside his general dislike of the teenagers in favor of putting them to work.

At least until Tony informed them all that there had been a hit on the official missing person’s report.

Remus felt detached, disassociated, as soon as the words ‘brain dead’ and ‘general match’ were uttered. Hermione had offered to ride with Tony to the hospital, but Remus stopped her.

If it was Harry - and Remus wished he had a God to pray to that it was not - then it would be Remus who would identify him.

The shrill sound of the police siren was a blessing while Tony drove double the speed limit from Chicago to Indianapolis. Remus could have apparated faster, but in his state he would have splinched his entire leg. And it was not entirely abhorrent to have someone with him that would be able to follow the procedure needed.

Remus certainly wouldn’t be able to. He didn’t even put his shoes on before he left the house, an action he only noticed when they arrived at the hospital in just two hours.

Tony pulled his car up to the emergency entrance and then grabbed Remus’ elbow when Remus stumbled exiting the car.

“It might not be him,” Tony murmured as he led them inside. Remus was seized by the sudden desire to simply not go inside.

If Remus didn’t see the body, then Harry might still be out in the world somewhere.

Schrödinger’s son.

“I can’t,” Remus said hoarsely, drawing to a halt just outside the automatic doors.

Remus couldn’t go in there and identify a body that might be James’ son, Remus’ boy.

Remus was a Gryffindor, but he’d always been a coward deep inside. Lily knew it, Sirius knew it, everyone knew it. It was luck that took Remus from the loyalty filled arms of Hufflepuff or the knowledge-hungry rooms of Ravenclaw.

Remus wanted to be brave, Remus liked to think he was brave. But Remus was a coward who couldn’t go inside that hospital if it was Harry inside.

Tony practically had to drag Remus away from the doors that they were triggering to open repeatedly. Remus took a shuddering breath when he was pushed to sit on the cold tailgate of an ambulance that was left running in the drive.

“Harry… I can’t go in there,” Remus admitted, looking down at his scarred hands. It was a cowards admission, even if it was the truth.

Tony knelt down on the ground and put his face level with Remus’. There was no judgement in his stare, as much as Remus would deserve it. There was a sympathetic sort of understanding his eyes, a look that arbitrarily made Remus consider hitting him to make it stop.

It was Remus’ fault that Harry was missing, Remus’ fault that he couldn’t find him. If it was Harry’s body laying in a bed inside the hospital, waiting for a family to arrive to declare his death, it would be Remus’ fault.

There was no understanding the depth of which Remus had done Harry wrong.

“I can go in,” Tony offered quietly. “His tattoo is a snake and skull, right?”

Remus felt a searing pain in his chest when he shook his head.

“It has antlers,” he said, forcing down the sob that wanted to destroy him. “They’re for James,” Remus went on, rambling in an attempt to not think about Harry having joined his parents. “There’s lilies, for his mother. A constellation… for Sirius. And—” Remus’ voice broke on the emotion that refused to lie dormant. “And a moon, for Remus.”

As soon as Remus said his own name, the stoic facade he had tried to enforce broke and tore down all his defenses. Remus’ shoulders shook with deep, shuddering sobs and Tony caught him when he fell forward, overwhelmed by the pain.

Harry had placed Remus on an equal level with the godfather he idolized and the parents he revered.

And Remus let him down so terribly. Remus had been caught up in everything else and he saw the way Harry struggled. Everyone watched Harry struggle and Remus was meant to do something.

Remus didn’t even realize that he was pouring apologies mixed with tears as Tony’s body was the only thing that kept him from hitting the ground. It didn’t matter, nothing did.

Not Remus’ apologies, not anything that Remus swore to do if given a second opportunity.

Remus would swear though. Remus would swear that if the body that waited inside the hospital wasn’t Harry’s that he would do everything right by him. Remus would guide him, teach him, help him. Castigating Harry for his mistakes and follies of youth had been pointless and detrimental. Remus swore to James himself that if it was not Harry inside the hospital, that Remus would outdo even him in being a parent worthy of a boy who tattooed a moon on his arm.

When the wind blew and cut through Remus’ thin cardigan, he imagined that it came from James himself.

“Solemnly swear,” Remus imagined James had said.

“I solemnly swear,” Remus breathed in Tony’s shoulder.

Remus inhaled the comfort being offered freely to him once more before he pushed himself upright.

“I’m ready,” Remus said, nearly meaning it.

No man was ever ready to identify the body of their child, but Remus could force himself to do so.

For Harry.

Remus expected to feel relief when the slight-framed, dark-haired teenage boy on the bed had his arm flipped over and his tattoo was displayed. The rushing train tattooed on his arm was beautiful and not Harry.

There was no relief, not truly. Harry was still missing, Remus was still missing the air in his lungs when they left the hospital.

“We’ll find him,” Tony swore. There was no doubt that he was much more chipper after they informed the officer within the hospital that the body was not Harry Black.

“I suspect we will, yes,” Remus agreed quietly, watching out the window as the city sped past them.

Five days was an eternity, but Remus had once spent seven days assisting the Order of the Phoenix in searching for Harry. And Remus had already set Nymphadora on poking at the wizarding trees to see what fell from them… there was always the agonizing possibility that Harry was somehow found by a rogue Death Eater who took Voldemort’s imprisonment out on Harry, but Nymphadora believed the odds were slight.

Never zero, not with the Boy-Who-Lived, but slight.

The drive home took twice as long as the drive to the hospital did. Part of which was due to Tony’s more restrained driving, the other part was due to Tony’s incessant chatter.

“I ran away once, when I was a kid,” Tony told Remus when they were fifty miles from Chicago. Remus looked over at him and the scathing retort he had died on his lips at Tony’s genuine tone.

“My parents were mad as hell when I came home,” Tony went on. “My dad swore I had fifty whippings coming.”

“Barbaric,” Remus muttered.

“My ma wouldn’t let him.” Tony flashed Remus a perfectly even smile before refocusing on the highway. “I know I broke their hearts and made them worry about me, but my ma was just so happy I came back that she made me promise not to run off again.”

“Why did you?” Remus asked, curious despite himself. If Remus had been raised in a home with two parents that tolerated him, if not loved him, he never would have ran away from that.

As it was, Remus and Mac were frequent runaways from the orphanage they were raised in. They were always faced with a switch on their return and it was what ultimately led them to not return at their earliest opportunity.

“Hmm. I was young, dumb,” Tony said lightly. “I’m one out of seven, you know, Catholic.”

Yes, Remus had presumed that based on everything about Tony.

“And there was just something painful when you’re a kid about being surrounded by people and thinking you’re completely alone.”

Remus sighed when he turned back to the window.

If that didn’t sound like Harry, Remus didn’t know what did.